A Love Story Told Through the Years
by Killerturtles
Summary: "The simple truth of it is that they were enemies by accident and rivals by youth and expectations." A Simon/Baz 1970s exploration of their Watford years, the emerging gay culture, San Francisco and the follies of falling in love. (see inside for mini-rant about the coolness of the 1970s and subcultures)
1. Prologue

Love stories, romance stories, are fickle - 'cause everyone knows they end in blood, in death, eventually because who's ever heard of a proper love story wherein two immortals were immortally happy together forever and the universe never ended and they were never killed and they never grew tired of each other?

Love stories are fickle, because they need passion and sex is a fine line to walk in a story.

Love stories are a balancing act, of juggling emotions and explaining obstacles. But at the heart, love stories are fickle because in a love story, there are only two people who really matter.

...

There's the one, the older student will giggle and snort, where they'd been in love the entire time. Simon and Baz, you know, they'd clarify, especially if any adults were around. But only the littlest ever believed that story of them because they never saw Simon and Baz at school.

There was the one where they hated each other and then loved each other just as passionately, but, the smarter ones will tell you that they'd never quite hated each other, not all the way.

There'd always been animosity and there'd been disagreements and pesky little murder attempts but it was rarely personal.

It wasn't something specifically about each other that they couldn't stand; it was what they stood for.

With Simon and Baz, they weren't even people to each other, in the beginning, they were ideas.

The simple truth of it is that they were enemies by accident and rivals by youth and expectations.

The youngest, the most naive, and the ones that never fell in love always seemed to think it meant they'd been in love from the beginning but that wasn't true. Because in the beginning they believed they hated each other and they had the misguided assumptions to back it up.

...


	2. Years 1 - 3: a retrospective

**a/n: I didn't want to bug anyone with a long authors note, so see the end for my 1970s rant. it's a little long. pretend i'm jumping around with overly large and emphatic hand gestures while your reading it if it gets dull. **

**_Year One: Simon Snow and the Mage's Heir_**

"I think my roommate's evil," Simon bluntly informs his recently chosen best friend Agatha.

Agatha rolled her eyes. "Aren't they all? I mean, Penelope - you know Penelope - she leaves her hair brushes just about everywhere and she always wants me to be quiet so she can _study _or for me to turn off the lights because it's ten and she needs her beauty sleep."

Simon snorts, because he knows Agatha's just mad that Penelope imploded her hair dryer while practicing silencing spells. _Silence is golden_, Penelope had shouted when Agatha opened her mouth and a thick strip of silver duct tape pressed across it, irremovable for several hours. "Think the beauty sleep is more your thing than anyone elses."

Agatha thinks about it, curling a glossy strand of blond hair around her forefinger. "I'm naturally this gorgeous," she announces.

It would be Simon's right to rolls his eyes, but he doesn't. Instead, he lets out a bark of laughter and soon enough, Agatha joins.

"No, but seriously," Simon tries to impress upon her, "I'm pretty sure my roommate is _evil _evil."

Agatha looks at him doubtfully. "No one is completely evil or irredeemable. Not in real life."

...

Agatha and Simon? They're the tightest! People say. People used to say things like, bet they were banging and of course Snow'd be that lucky until Simon Snow came out, in which case Agatha's admirers increased ten-fold and Simon's only sagged a bit.

...

Agatha refuses to believe that Baz is evil for most of first year.

Then Baz pushes her into the filthy moat water in front of Timmy Leon and his cute dimpled smile and she's forced to concede that Simon was right.

Simon must have felt some sort of regret at turning someone like Agatha actually against someone, but all he could remember was the sharp roots of vindication and a piece of enormous happiness slotting into place at the thought that now he had someone who would listen to him talk about Baz.

Complain.

Complain about Baz.

...

..

.

* * *

><p><em>...<em>

_.._

_._

**_Second Year: Simon Snow and the Second Serpent_**

Second year was the worst, almost everyone will agree.

Second year is the year that Simon hexes Baz for the first time and second year is the year that they get into a brawl in the middle of dinner in first year.

Second year is the worst because it starts out so promising when they break through the term feast wall slashing and cursing at a chimera. (It wasepic, all the other students promise. Even more epic than annual student reproduction will have you believe.)

But the day after that, Baz trips Simon in the hall and a week after that Simon frames Baz for a class disruption and gets him sent to the principals office. (worse than it sounds because Baz is almost suspended and gets a month's worth of detentions with the Mage and everyone suffers from that. Simon falls a lot during that time, or loses his books, or, memorably, his contacts for three weeks).

(Simon, the older students explain, looks delightfully british and posh and prim in glasses but the teachers thought the laughter was disruptive. Detentions, they groused, were plentiful. _Unfair _detentions. They're willing to look past that though, generous bastards - er, generous kindly fellows - that they are, because the glasses are more important later on.)

They talk the least and fight the most, second year, and it's unbearably mean at times and utterly cruel at others.

They're locked in a broom closet together for six hours on easter and everything calms down after that.

...

Bet they fucked, people will say. I bet they kissed.

At that age? People will argue and then wonder.

But all they did is talk, because Simon is claustrophobic (he's spent his whole life trapped) and Baz is a vampire in a coffin in the dark and they've got some things to get out of the way.

They go back to hating each other soon enough, but it's a peaceful, almost friendly sort of hate after that. A passive feeling of - 'oh, that douche? Yeah, I hate him.'

Everyone breathes a sigh a relief as they stop actively trying to kill each other.

...

Simon loses his glasses midway through the year, and, this is the bit people often forget, that is how he met Penelope. She's got glasses too and Simon's reluctantly donning his pair - he knows Baz took his contacts that insufferable, obnoxious, idiotic complete prick.

"Simon Snow?" She seems to ask, incredulous.

He waves. "But," she protests, looking completely flabbergasted, "you can't have glasses! You're Simon Snow." She said Simon Snow the way everyone who doesn't know him does, the way where they mean perfect and Simon Snow pops up instead.

It's the only time she does this.

"It's not like I wanted to be born farsighted!" Simon snaps at her.

Penelope just smiles at him, albit slightly condescendingly. "Me neither," she points at her own glasses.

He shrugs and mutters, "Baz" as if that explains everything.

"Who?" Penelope questions.

Simon stares at her. And then stares at her some more. "Is it alright if you become my new best friend?" He demands, smile creeping across his face.

Penelope, in lieu of answering, pulls out her planner. "How much of a time commitment would that involve?" She pulls a pencil out of her hair and moves as if to take notes.

Simon abruptly lets out a single coughing laugh. "You're not - serious?"

Smiling, Penelope drops her arms. "No. But why don't we start with lunch and you can tell me all about this 'Baz'."

"Well," Simon jumps in as an answer, "the first thing you've got to know about Baz is that he's an evil git."

...

People got used to seeing Simon with Agatha or Penelope or both and - suffice to say, both girls received their fair share of enemies and nasty articles.

Simon never noticed, something both girls took immense satisfaction in.

...

"So, you heard about -"

"Baz? Yes. In great detail. Throughout lunch. About the time he asked a question about wizards there's no way he could have known and Baz didn't let him forget it for weeks, about the time that Baz hung him upside down in the great hall for "accidentally" spilling water on his robes for eighteen entire minutes," Penelope takes a breath, considers the merits of continuing and eventually just waves a hand around instead. "You probably know."

Agatha's eyes rocket around in their socket. "Do I ever!"

Penelope snickers at that. "'Do I ever'? Sounds like something from the 50s, Aggie. Don't be a _square _sista - this in 1975."

Agatha's looks hurt, but Penelope just continues with her quiet chuckle. "Not laughing at you, sweetheart. Laughing with you. Mustn't take offense."

...

Agatha and Penelope? The roomates? Didn't they like, hate each other for that one week in March? People asks, and they're right.

It lasted a week and then something snapped into place.

That thing was Simon.

...

Penelope was in the library - Penelope is perpetually in the library, according to Simon - which was good because Simon is missing and Penelope's the only person Agatha can think of to ask for help in finding him.

"I think Baz got him," Penelope stage whispered. "You know, for his dark rituals. _Because he's_ evil," she emphasised sarcastically, waving her hands and sinking low to a mockingly spooky voice for 'evil'.

Agatha told her politely to shut it. "I'm worried! I haven't seen him in ... in a day!" Said aloud, it does sound lame. Agatha's shoulders slump.

"I haven't either," Penelope said slowly. She definitely doesn't feel guilty though. "Fuck. What's the bastard done with him?"

"Who? Baz?"

"I don't know! Whoever takes Simon freaking Snow is a bastard though! Are you going to help me look?" Already, Penelope is stuffing everything that had managed to spill and pile around her corner of the library back into the enormous bag she carried everywhere.

Agatha thought about responding but realized it wasn't worth it and apparently three hours of panicking with someone does wonders for bonding.

...

Simon was asleep. Baz locked him inside their dorm for the day and he'd simply slept through their attempts to break down the door.

...

And yes, they'd completely _crucified _him when he finally awoke.

...

..

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

..

...

**_Third Year: Simon Snow and the Third Gate_**

Third year involved a lot of gates, honestly, and a bunch of crap with drama and escapees and virgin births, so no one really tracked Simon and Baz through the third year.

But, noticed or not, third year was the year that Baz started avoiding the dorm and Simon started stalking him (just a bit).

Third year was the year that Baz started experiencing bloodlusts, and third year wouldn't be the year Simon found out about them.

...

People, whenever they talked about third year, talked about the virgin births. Muggle borns, whenever they talked about the third year seemed to get really excited over jesus parallels and then scared and the novel _Good Omens_ later gained a huge viewing base through the school in the 90s.

It would be taken in undeniable seriousness and it was proof, in other words, that wizards were an overly literally lot and in should no way ever be entrusted with something as precious as a practical joke.

...

"What if it's - you know -" Simon gestured about their room, "one of us? Next time?"

Baz favored Simon with a look of utter disdain. "Honestly, Simon. Do you even think about what comes out of your mouth sometimes?"

Simon blushes and frowns at Baz. "But, aren't they already biologically impossible? Like virgin births? Already a stretch. Is dudes getting preggers any weirder?"

Baz's eyes widened in a way that seemed to suggest, _you don't _know? "Yes."

That's all the say on the subject and, minorly to Simon's disappointment, Baz was proved accurate and only five ladies became pregnant. And only two of them were virgin births, though three claimed to be.

...

It's probably the only decent conversation the two manage that year.

...

"I don't get it! It's not fair and it's stupid!" Simon is complaining, childishly, not for the first or the last time about the fact that he has to be Baz's roommate.

The Mage frowns at him. "Simon, you were chosen to be his roommate -"

"Yeah, well I was chosen to be the Mage's Heir two years ago and look how that turned out!"

The Mage smiles at him, proud and mischievous. "Quite well, from where I'm standing. You're a fine man to lead us Simon, a fine man."

At the end of that, the Mage handed Simon a book, _The Sorting Crucible_ scrawled in gold cursive ("cursive! Of all things, why cursive?") and a half broken spine.

"Read it," he said, and that was the last thing he said.

...

_Implemented since the time of dawn, since the first records of Watford, the truth of the Sorting Crucible has never come to light. It has remained shrouded in darkness and mystery, illuminated only briefly by unreliable anomalies._

_Enough, however, of these anomalies, is enough for a case, especially given the astounding similarities and the strong psychic link measure between the Sorting Crucible and those containing the Words Within, the very words which determine our Mage Heirs._

_Regardless of origins, to be covered chapters 6-8, the uses of this device of immeasurable magical power are manifold._

_First and foremost it is used in dividing roommates into their groups: it uses a slight psychic link and draws on the power within the core of the earth to generate comparative futures based off student combinations and assigns a roommate according to that which will best serve the light._

_Technical in extreme, the tradition and bonds forged at Watford are not the stuff of penny novels and romances for nothing: roommates are often chosen due to powerful bonds that connect them. The nature of these bonds are as they are created so they exist forever - past, present and future._

_To further clarify: a bond formed in the future is a bond existing in the past, due to the protective nature of the Sorting Crucible and it's power to invoke time itself to work its will._

_In this way, the Sorting Crucible's means of accomplishment become clear: premonitions or other methods to peer into the strands of time are utilized to form soldiers and workers for the light._

Alright, Simon though. Alright. But Baz, really? I can best serve the light by being with Baz? Maybe it got confused.

Simon knew it wasn't the case. That couldn't be. The Sorting Crucible was especially attuned to Mage Heirs. But what other - what other reason could it have for putting him and Baz together?

Several minutes of musing later and Simon decided that it was because the Sorting Crucible thought that Simon would be the person best suited to stopping Baz's dark and illicit activities. It was making him responsible for protecting the world from Baz.

Simon puffed out his chest - and it's damned lucky Penelope wasn't there to see him do it - and smiled to himself.

Watching Baz was a job he'd take gleefully.

**a/n: the PROMISED 1970s rant: **

**so I read like the coolest book ever that I'm going to auto-recomend to ANYONE and EVERYONE called season of the witch by David Talbot and it's about the history of San Francisco from 1967-1981 and it's really really amazing. this story takes place late 1970s so that it can deal with things like Harvey Milk's assassination and stuff like that. **

**i mean, it's mostly just about the (often ridiculous) romance of Simon/Baz (it started out as a - short, 5K MAX piece that was just going to poke fun at the various stages of their relationship dynamics as they changed through the years and then I was all: BUT SADIE, THE 1970S, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THEM?**

**And then I was kind of, yeah, but then i can't reference Buffy. But then - but then - Killerturtles, killerturtles, it's the 1970s. the (pause) *heavy breathing* 19_70s. _**

**And then I kind of went YOLO IT'S THE 1970S EVERYTHING IS 1970S. **

**This is a warning because the next chapter will feature the 1970s and one of my personal idols Harvey Milk (he was the first openly gay man elected to major office circa 1978)**

**warning the second: chapters will get loooonger (because of the 1970s COMPLETELY HIJACKING THIS SHIT)**

**I love hearing feedback so let me know what you think (or any comments on the 1960s, 70s, or even early 80s)**


	3. Year 4: Simon Snow and the Selkies Four

**a/n: warning: this chapter is very gay. (no sex though) sidewarning: there is some foul language used, I'll try to provide warnings as they go because I know I cover some pretty intense stuff in later chapters. General warning for period appropriate hateful language **

Fourth year's a big deal because that's the year Simon Snow came out.

And he didn't do it quietly, or discretely, or even expectedly because Simon Snow ain't about that lifestyle. He is, however, quite about that homosexual lifestyle. That was his __jam__ (apparently).

Just ask anyone - just ask James. James. James O'Connell, Irish bastard and most famous person at Watford sans Simon Snow. Also known as: James "Simon Snow's first __boyfriend,"__ O'Connell.

But the coming out came before the boyfriend and the rest followed and it wasn't all good and some of it was James O'Connell and the rest was surprise and if you look at Simon Snow's fourth year overall, the boyfriend is the calm before the storm, the dull, slow bit at the beginning. Plot wise, it's irrelevant.

At the time, though so few students will remember, the political machinations brewing in San Francisco allowing an openly gay man, Harvey Milk, to become elected, was __the__ single most talked about event, the biggest shock since finding another Mage Heir in Simon.

This, most will deny. Because no one wants to be the shallow, gossiping student but worse: no one wants to be the homophobic shithead who attacked the Mage Heir, the savior of the Mages and the hero of the century.

Fourth year was the year people talked the most about but afterwards, it was the year no one talked about.

These days, it's Baz and Simon and year eight are all anyone will talk about.

...

Fourth year was also the most strained year between Simon and Baz and it's because they actually know each other and only partially hate each other.

Later, all everyone will say is: jealousy.

They're not - they're not right, not exactly, only maybe they are but no one ever asked Baz and no one ever called jealousy until years later.

...

It's embarassed talk, the sort men like Harvey Milk and George Moscone, the sort events like Stonewall bring up.

In writing classes, Ms. Micha reads from Allen Ginsberg's __Howl__. It's depraved, some say. Or, it's brave. It's intense. I don't get it. Ew. Wow. Others don't talk.

She reminds them of opening a dialogue, of frankness, of changing times. Agatha buys a hat and a cigarette and glasses and declares she's a Beatnik and she's going on a __road trip __over the summer.

Just like __Jack Kerouac __and __Neal Cassiady, __guys!

Penelope snorts derisively at her.

...

Simon is the first person in his year to come "out" officially and __only __Agatha saw it coming.

Agatha is - "oblivious to fault," Penelope fumes to Simon, many times in first, second, and third year. Finishing it with, "It's like - like she doesn't even see how she affects people!" after the particularly painful and awkward case of Jonny the hopeless, dateless wonder.

Or even: "She's just going to get taken advantage of, god help her!" when she agreed to a "study date" with a sixth year.

Or sometimes: "I swear to god, that'll woman could turn up at an orgy and be surprised when everyone starts having sex!"

It was 'cause she worried, Penelope would defend herself. It was how Penelope showed she cared.

Agatha was too nice to mind, and even if she wasn't, she'd get it.

Because maybe Penelope was hard nosed and wouldn't even be taken in on a scam, and maybe Penelope knew when people sucked and that there were cruel, brutal, hurting idiots who wouldn't know when to quit, and maybe Penelope got that the world was as messed up as the people in it and Agatha didn't, but Agatha could understand kindness, could stubbornly defend humanities right to crawl out of the mud and fuck shit up, could understand the value of a smile that didn't judge.

And so, Simon never exactly told Penelope, but Agatha went of her first date long before she got accepted at Watford because the raunchy world of San Francisco in the seventies was - eye opening.

...

Agatha was actually one of the few students that lived in San Fransisco, but if America didn't know Harvey Milk yet (and it did), it sure as hell did on third month of fourth year, November 27th, 1978.

...

Harvey Milk. Mayor of Canal Street. Jewish. Openly Gay. Gay. Forty-something. California champion of gay rights. Politician. Master of the dog-shit campaign. The gay rights activist. Against racism. Supported minorities. First openly gay supervisor. Loved and was loved. The unorthodox politician who came into the game in his forties, from working on wall street and broadway simultaneously in New York. Tireless.

Crazy kook with a camera shop on canal street who roped the teamsters, hard helmets and unions into supporting his campaign, who came from hippies and who took the fights to the streets but, more importantly, to the press and brought the word homosexuality out of the closet.

Everyone who was anyone who knew politics knew Harvey Milk and Agatha loved him.

She'd talk about Harvey Milk's hope speeches, memorize and recite bits about hope, about bringing hope.

And when he died, when he was assassinated along with the leading liberal mayor by fellow politician and homophobe Dan White, a lost, confused man fighting for a San Francisco that was all but buried gone, she'd read his 'political will' out loud; the one that said come out of your closets, that this'll keep happening and no one will care until you make them care by showing them that they know you, they know queers and they know kooks and they're related to them and they're birthing them and growing up loving them.

The speech that said it was their duty, the one that said it was about giving hope and she read it out loud to everyone and wasn't surprised when Simon Snow came out.

(everyone else was)

...

"If this is what you can do to fags in __San Fransisco__," people seemed to be unable to finish saying, "what can - ?"

__What can you do to them everywhere else?__

...

In 1978, a week before Harvey Milk was killed, people weren't talking about the suicides. People weren't talking about the People's Temple, San Francisco's rainbow family church of acceptance and socialism because in 1978, their leader Jim Jones engineered the largest mass suicide in recorded history.

Over two thousand people were convinced to kill themselves, mostly black woman and children because of evidence of the inhumane treatment of Jim Jones's followers – sexual, physical and emotional manipulation hiding behind this man who promised people acceptance and new starts.

Nobody was talking about it because everyone was thinking what Allen Ginsberg of Howl and of the Beatniks had asked his friend nearly a decade earlier before the event that sparked the summer of love and San Francisco's cultural revolution: what if we're wrong?

A week later, Harvey Milk was assassinated with liberal mayor George Moscone and the silence broke.

…

On December 3, 1978, Watford had a memorial for liberal mayor George Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk and the Mage asked if anyone had anything they'd like to say and Simon'd gone, "Yeah."

And he'd gotten up, "yeah, yeah. I think I do." He'd walked up to the front of all the students and whispers, __speak even if your voice shakes, __wand pointed at his throat.

He'd almost stumbled on the way up, because they were outside in the large, grassy grounds and it was getting dark.

There was a sea of students and unlit candles and - and Agatha will always, always be proud of Simon for this - he hadn't even hesitated.

"I'm gay, and this wasn't right. So. This is me, coming out. 'Cause we've got to. 'Cause I like guys and I'll never marry a girl and I deserve to be happy. I deserve to fall in love and deserve not to have to worry about being assassinated or belittled by the good guys."

And he'd gotten down and walked away and they - the two of them, Agatha and Penelope - found him shaking, hours later and Penelope smacked him.

And that's what happened fourth year, before James O'Connell.

...

"So, cock?" Baz asks, out of the blue, several weeks after the memorial, while whispers are still going fast. He cocks his head to the side.

Simon Snow, predictably, blushed. "Yes -" he starts and Baz interrupts.

"Hey, I forgot to ask, are we fucking? Think I'd have noticed but - well, like seven people have asked me today and I'm wondering if I'm missing something."

With a supreme dryness - something that __Penelope __will always, always be proud of him for - Simon looks and Baz and lifts an eyebrow. It's the only time he's ever managed to lift a single eyebrow and probably the only time he ever will. "If you're unobservant enough to miss my cock up your ass, I don't know how you've managed to stay in Watford this long."

It leaves Baz sputtering and it's possible it's one of the five times Simon actually manages to win a battle of wits with Baz.

It's not his proudest moment, but damn if it isn't close. Simon leaves grinning and doesn't stop for the next twenty-four hours.

...

There's pushing, which isn't fun, and some nasty, awful looks from idiots that Simon wouldn't ever bother with normally and from people he's considered polite acquaintances and he's had a different guy ask him out every other week or something so far.

To be fair, that's only, like, too many weeks to count (twelve).

And it stops after James who - lets face it, even superhero Mage Heirs are shallow - is __just__ sexy enough and charming enough for him to say 'yes'.

James who is two years older (that's hardly anything, Pen!) and has had three (three! three, Agatha! how am I supposed to compete with three?) boyfriends (fuckbuddies that never kissed and told) before and one girlfriend.

James who wasn't technically gay and always said no when people asked and yeah, Simon got the whole thing with being bisexual and being proud of it but it felt, sometimes, like James was saying I'm straight when he said no to that question.

No one else really came out, ever, at all, that year. He got asked by guys "experimenting" and girls trying to fix him.

He got asked, period, a lot of things.

No one really wanted to say gay though.

Don't you know? Saying gay means you're gay, means not only do you like same sex relationships but now you're a stereotype not yet recovered from it's awkward macho phase.

Beyond his coming out speech, Simon didn't use it much either, the word that meant too much.

Gay.

Simon "liked boys". "Took it up the ass". Was a "fag," "queer" or "fairy".

Simon wasn't __gay__, though, and neither was James O'Connell.

...

There were, also, conversations, with Agatha and Penelope that started the night he came out, with a slap.

Agatha glared at Penelope, but Penelope ignores her. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Simon's staring at the wall. "Oh, god. I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I did that in front of the Mage. Will Baz ask for a new roommate am I crazy -"

Agatha places two hands on his face. "Hey," she tells him, gently, warm breath unpleasant and static on his cheeks. "You didn't hesitate." She brushes her thumb around his cheeks.

Simon looks down, and back up, blinking his eyes seven or eight times. When he speaks, his voice is low and quiet and hard to hear and easy to miss. "You know what the worst part is? Didn't have to worry about how my parents would react." He shrugs and blinks some more. "Don't have a-any." He voices stumbles and almost breaks.

Agatha's face is collapsing in on itself - doing the thing, the thing it does when she gets all sad for someone else and can't do anything about it but be sad - and she's putting her arms around him before he's done speaking.

Penelope is quiet but she doesn't look mad anymore.

"We don't mind," she informs him tonelessly. "You know that right?"

Simon stares at the ground and doesn't answer. (it sounds like she minds, a part of his mind stubbornly pouts).

"Well," Agaha continues briskly, "now you do. We don't. We love you the same. Now, lets get to bed. I'm sad and it's 10:30 on a Sunday."

...

"You don't - y'know - want to change roommates or anything, right Baz?" Simon asks him, one night, in the middle of the year.

"Look, Snow. You're a dick." Baz smirks. "Liking dick has no impact on that fact." He rolls over in the misguided hope that Simon will take a hint and end the conversation right there.

He doesn't. "Thanks," Simon tells his pillow.

"Great Mage Heir thanking a lowly peasant like me?"

Simon sounds defensive. "I'm not - I don't think like that."

Baz laughs. "Again, don't know if this gay business is leading you to expect any special treatment from me. Because in order for me to retaliate, I would have to care about you in some way. Which, obviously, I don't."

There's silence between the boys.

"Goodnight, Baz."

"Sleep tight Simon."

These nighttime pleasantries are said with far more sarcasm and malice than one would assume.

"Hey," Baz wonders aloud after no time at all, "when did you know that you were gay?" He bets Simon is blushing. Fuck, he bets all his money that Simon is blushing a radioactive, rosey-cheeked glow that could potentially be seen in the dark if Baz angled his head far enough sideways.

"Um. Little after my first - only - date with Agatha."

"You mean your only date? Ever?" He scoffs. "Pathetic. What was that, second year?"

Simon responds with, "Keeping tabs, much? Who's pathetic now?"

The silence that meets that poor attempt at a jeer is humiliated and drawn out but Simon refuses to take it back.

"No," Baz finally drawls out slowly. "It's called being observant. You should try it sometime, Snow."

Simon doesn't respond.

It's conversations like these, the ones late at night when neither can sleep that they don't talk about in the morning that Simon thinks they could almost be friends.

...

"You're looking slightly more pathetic than usual," Baz's sneering face greats Simon that afternoon after a particularly unpleasant incident with some idiots.

Simon sighed, tiredly. "Let me guess, you want to give them a high five?"

"Yeah," his grin widens forcibly, "that's exactly why." And with far more force than is actually necessary, slams his shoulder into Simon on his way out.

...

"Hey, Baz?"

"Go the fuck to sleep loser."

...

"Snow!" The voice comes from the end of the corridor, loud and annoyed.

"Fuck off, Baz!"

"Snow!" Exasperated, Baz reaches out and grasps Simon's shoulder, intending to spin him around.

Simon shrugs his shoulder roughly, hand smacking against Baz. "I said fuck off, Basilton."

Baz shoves him, Simon throws a fist and later, when a teacher finally arrives, they're covered in bruises and given detention for a week.

...

It's three weeks left until school gets out and Baz is fucking a thin, blond girl with ice flints for eyes.

Simon slams the door and doesn't return until the next day.

They don't talk - or, Simon doesn't talk and he sits and glares and Baz sits and gets bitter and it breaks at 6:30 PM, half an hour before dinner.

"We can't all be fucking fags, Snow."

Simon sneers and it's ugly. "Some of us don't have to be sluts. What was it, too many or not enough hugs, little baby Baz?"

Baz only scoffs scornfully and leaves.

Simon's cheeks are apples, freshly picked and red with humiliation.

...

The year doesn't end on a good note, but it didn't start on one either.

...

**a/n: I know it's a pretty depressing ending but things will get better? maybe? I like cliffhangers too much? Stay tuned for another rant? about Harvey Milk tho' - basically, what's true/what isn't. **

**Also: I absolutely adore Harvey Milk (and y'all can watch Sean Penn play him in the 2008 biotopic Milk if you want) because he was such a symbol of hope and that was really the core of his message. like, one of the things he said was "if a bullet should enter my brain, let it break down every closet door," and another was, when basically told, give up, Dan White / people are homophobic, he said: "everyone can be reached. everyone can be educated and helped."**

**fun fact: he was republican. **

**also: totally dedicated towards labor unions, minorities, putting rent caps in SF and empowering small businesses. he inspired a mile long human billboard, he practically personified charisma, he totally lied and said he got kicked out the miltiary for being gay (hella HELLA people did and ended up in coastal towns like - well, gee wiz, a lot of gay people were dislocated from the military to SF. wonder if that had anything to do with the macho gay culture? - which i find really amusing. **

**like, it's a politician, lying and saying he was in legal trouble with the military for RAMPANT GAY SEX. and people were upset he lied about this. (he was in the military and his point was that it happened to a ton of people and wasn't okay.)**

**he worked on broadway musicals on the weekend (jesus christ superstar and lenny) and wall street during the day and then, at 40, basically said YOLO I'M GUNNA BE A POLITICIAN IN SAN FRANCISCO AND TELL THE WORLD I'M GAY. and everyone's all: sit down, buh. we've got a long term plan and we don't need you. **

**and harvey's all: no you're doing to gay movement wrong, you've got to stop euphemising it and start talking frankly about it and taking it to the streets and change people not just policy, you've got to get societal acceptance too!**

**like, when he was running, this other gay candidate said, "I don't want to be known as the gay candidate, I want to be known as the candidate that happened to be gay."**

**Harvey Milk stood up and said, "fuck that. I'm gay!"**


End file.
